Just realized the American Pro this past weekend was only 40 minutes from where I live. Whoops.
Seeing Dan Grigsby pull 1,074 would have been neat. And John Haack…being John Haack.
There was a lot of good lifting at that meet, it would have been cool to be there. You could have seen that epic misload for Penson (squatted 925lbs, tried to go for a fourth but they accidentally put an extra 40kgs or something on the bar and he got stapled), rumor was he went a little nuts after that whole thing.
I saw that, apparently a 50kg misload?!?!?
0
eddizhereScrubber Than A SpongeScrubtown, USARegistered Userregular
I’ve been lifting long enough that it would make sense for me to no longer be on a linear progression program but my consistency has been really intermittent the whole time.
Should I start thinking about moving off LP when my gains start to stall or when recovery hits a wall? I feel like I’m nearing that spot with squats and deadlifts but my OHP and bench aren’t leaving me stiff/sore hardly at all. Is it normal to keep LP on some movements and change things around for movements you’re starting to peak at?
League of Legends: Plutoniumwombat
Smite: Plutoniumwombat
Just realized the American Pro this past weekend was only 40 minutes from where I live. Whoops.
Seeing Dan Grigsby pull 1,074 would have been neat. And John Haack…being John Haack.
There was a lot of good lifting at that meet, it would have been cool to be there. You could have seen that epic misload for Penson (squatted 925lbs, tried to go for a fourth but they accidentally put an extra 40kgs or something on the bar and he got stapled), rumor was he went a little nuts after that whole thing.
I saw that, apparently a 50kg misload?!?!?
I think they misloaded Joey Coriacci’s third attempt, too. He posted a story the day of, but nothing since. Everyone else seemed to say it was a really well run meet.
In today’s life threatening mistakes, do not - I repeat, do not - exhale with the bar on your chest during a high volume set of two board presses. I’m pretty sure I stumbled into some kind of fetish territory doing so. Finishing that set torched me hard with three more after to get through.
My butt is laggin'. I got like, dino quads and hamstrings so my upper legs be thick as hell but my ass? My ass she is so frail and weak. I think some of that may also be a contributing factor to some of my lower back issues as well so there's a functional aspect to this, too.
I'm trying to focus on glutes too as I'm working on correcting my anterior pelvic tilt, which I have partly because it runs in the family and mostly because I spent a lot of time sitting down gaming.
Lumbar spine is aggravated this week, so having to really dial things back for a bit. Annoying when I'm otherwise feeling good and don't really want to take an easy week, but not really productive to push it until these nerves calm down and aren't on such a hair trigger. Stupid back, being critical to... everything
Sandbags are no joke man. I got my first one, a 100lb bag from Cerberus last week. Also ordered a 50lb from Rep that I'm still waiting on. I figured "Hey, 100 lbs ain't that much, my warmups start higher than that. I can pick it up a couple times, walk around a bit and toss it over my shoulder a couple of times! No problem!"
Hahahaha NOPE. My ribcage said no sir, no you're not! I don't know what I did, but it feels like someone has a string connected to the inside of my ribcage on my right side and if I twist or lean it's like that sadistic bastard yanks on it like they're starting an outboard motor. I've woken myself up gasping in pain the past couple nights when I attempt to roll over in a way that those muscles disagree with. Looks like I'll be waiting till the 50lb bag shows up and using that for a while to build up to the 100lb.
Also, that Brian Alsruhe EDC program seems ridiculous when I look at his weight recommendations. Light = 25-50lbs less than bodyweight, Medium = ~bodyweight, Heavy = 25-50lb more than bodyweight. This is gonna be super humbling if I can't even deal with the 100lb sandbag yet.
Brian's recommendations are for strong people, like for real strong, and also don't scale so well as you get heavier. I saw what he was recommending and thought "man I'd have a pretty rough time with those weights" and I'm decently strong, not exceptional but I've put my time in. Absolutely use weight you can actually get through the program with.
Squat rehab is still going slowly. I'm up to about 155-175 pounds. I feel like my depth is increasing some and I'm getting better at hinging through my hips. My current problem is the strain in my knees.
It feels like where my vastus medialis ties in under the patella on the inside of the knee is getting a lot of strain and I can kinda counter this by really focusing on dropping down through the hips and forcing my knees out in a slightly wider angle to my feet but it takes a lot of concentration.
Squat rehab is still going slowly. I'm up to about 155-175 pounds. I feel like my depth is increasing some and I'm getting better at hinging through my hips. My current problem is the strain in my knees.
It feels like where my vastus medialis ties in under the patella on the inside of the knee is getting a lot of strain and I can kinda counter this by really focusing on dropping down through the hips and forcing my knees out in a slightly wider angle to my feet but it takes a lot of concentration.
I spent almost a year doing low weights because of knee problems. Are you going past 90 degrees? I've seen lots of glorifying depth of the squat, but never from the medical or PT community (with significant weight). I'm pretty flexible and I could get low, but after some knee problems and talking to physical therapists, I do squats with a little stool behind me so that I only barely go past 90. I haven't had problems since, and was able to go back up to decent weights.
Squat rehab is still going slowly. I'm up to about 155-175 pounds. I feel like my depth is increasing some and I'm getting better at hinging through my hips. My current problem is the strain in my knees.
It feels like where my vastus medialis ties in under the patella on the inside of the knee is getting a lot of strain and I can kinda counter this by really focusing on dropping down through the hips and forcing my knees out in a slightly wider angle to my feet but it takes a lot of concentration.
I spent almost a year doing low weights because of knee problems. Are you going past 90 degrees? I've seen lots of glorifying depth of the squat, but never from the medical or PT community (with significant weight). I'm pretty flexible and I could get low, but after some knee problems and talking to physical therapists, I do squats with a little stool behind me so that I only barely go past 90. I haven't had problems since, and was able to go back up to decent weights.
I actually don't know. When I fucked my back up I did squats off a box for a good year, year and a half and for some reason they felt really limiting to me. Like I wasn't getting maximal ROM so I dropped my weight back to like, warmup weights and have been slowly rebuilding from there.
That said, I've been getting this knee tightness at almost every portion of the movement if I'm not careful, not just in the hole. I need to find some good compression sleeves and see if that helps a touch.
Basically the message I'm getting from my body is that it no longer wants to lift weights. I've been dealing with a long simmering strain starting in my right trap, running down through my front delt and into the bicep that's been making things like incline benches and OHP feel kinda dangerous. I dunno, might be time to just start doing Jane Fonda stuff I guess.
Just did an all out set of SSB for eight where I started slowing down in the middle of the last rep and, for some reason, I let go of the handles and just pushed for dear life (not with my hands).
I’m counting it. PR!
Now to survive five sets of backoffs. Survival instincts, don’t fail me now.
Hey guys, I'm back trying to build me some muscles, but I got Bench Problems.
Due to a lack of plate variety in my apartment gym, I had to hop from 165 (two sets of six) all the way to 185. First time I tried it, I managed to get two reps out, and I thought, hey, not bad, this will gradually improve. But now, a full month later, I am NO CLOSER. In fact, today I had to bail on my second rep of my second set and shame-wriggle out of it.
I'm incensed and confused. How do you guys go about breaking plateaus like this? How do I tell if it's a mental thing?
I do a bunch of back and arm work, because that almost always helps, and hit more sets and reps at a lower weight.
I'm trying seated overhead press and weighted dips as one of my press days, since benching twice a week has been no bueno in the past, and two weeks in it's going ok. I hit a smooth set of six dips with an extra 30lbs today (dipping a total weight of ~245lbs) and that's better than I expected, I can work with that.
Can you up your reps on the lower weight? Get them up to 10* over a few sessions then try the higher weight again? Progress is progress, whether it's weight or reps, and it'll definitely help.
*Or whatever works for you to get what you're aiming for. I aim for 10 so I can drop down to 5 when I go up in weight. Then I start over.
Plateaus happen for a lot of reasons. So without knowing what your form looks like, what your programming is like, and what your training history is like, the generic recommendation is to eat more and sleep more.
Board pressing is really challenging my ability to keep a brace. Given how I conducted myself earlier in my life, I would’ve thought I would have been most accustomed to having weights pressing down on my abdomen, but I guess I never went this heavy.
How are you setting up the board Gork? Do you have an actual board or a bench blok kinda deal? I've got one I made for myself but I'm always curious about what other people are using.
I’m really ashamed of myself, but Derek Thistlewaithe is my new guilty pleasure. He just went on a rant about how powerlifting is a dumb sport that no one cares about (because it is dumb, not that they should care about it), powerlifters need to stop acting like they’re professional athletes, and he ended by yelling that even though he’s one of the best in the world, he drives a Honda, because nobody cares about powerlifting.
I’m really ashamed of myself, but Derek Thistlewaithe is my new guilty pleasure. He just went on a rant about how powerlifting is a dumb sport that no one cares about (because it is dumb, not that they should care about it), powerlifters need to stop acting like they’re professional athletes, and he ended by yelling that even though he’s one of the best in the world, he drives a Honda, because nobody cares about powerlifting.
I don't see anything shameful about that, I follow plenty of lifters on social media because they're interesting characters and I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all (until they turn out to have shitty politics or be sex pests). I'll spoiler my own wee rant about powerlifting in case you don't care what I think, and I wouldn't blame you!
I think lifting is cool and all but honestly between bodybuilding and strongman and powerlifting and highland games (and Crossfit if you want to throw it in to be cheeky) I think powerlifting is the least interesting of the iron sports and some people take it SO SERIOUSLY and it's like friend maybe chill until you're actually incredibly strong and then you can be ultra-powerlifting-person all you want. This isn't charitable and I'll own that but "I'm a powerlifter!" is honestly a little bit of a weird identity to embrace for me, it's a cool hobby and all but for most people it's just another way to exercise (and to be clear I feel the same way about people who get way into Crossfit or whatever) and it's not even a cool skill you can show off to your buddies like being good at basketball or soccer or something would be.
The last couple of weeks fatigue has been real from work and family and my squats and what not were feeling great but my bench felt like trash. Hit 315x8 as a top set yesterday morning with a couple in the tank and feel much better about how my training has gone.
I’ll be lucky to get in 3 lifts per week over the next month. I’ll have to make do with 2 and finding a way to fit something in once or twice per week. Maybe time to take mobility serious? Lol jk
Daily upcoming schedule if anybody is curious:
4:00am - wake up, prep for day with water and coffee
4:45am - walk dog and take care of bathroom needs
5:15ish - fix breakfast, bathroom
6:00 - wake up baby, eats breakfast
6:45 - en route to daycare
7:10 - practice
8:15 school starts, practice rolls through athletics period
9:00-3:50 teach
4:00 go help after school with practice
4:30/4:45 go to HS and run wtrm 2x school week
5:30-6:00 home
6-7:30 spend as much time with baby as possible and do chores before she goes down. Walk dog if not too hot / throw ball in yard if it’s too hot to walk.
9-10pm bed unless it’s game night then it’s more like 11-12 after laundry and uploading film and getting home and eating something.
Fortunately we have some help with friends and family nearby that will let the dog out around midday so he’s not having to hold it from 7-5
diablo III - beardsnbeer#1508 Mechwarrior Online - Rusty Bock
Woke up in the middle of the night with my right bicep hurting pretty badly. I think it's actually coming from my shoulder and I think it may have been from going to one of those golf places where you whack golf balls. It's not a move I'm used to and I'm very bad at it.
It kinda is making me nervous pulling deadlifts today because I'm like "is my bicep about to snap?" I've had one too many of those muscle tear videos sneak up on me and now it is a fear I live with.
People on the Internet are smart sometimes. I like upright rows but they don't always like me and someone online pointed out that you can move your hands out and use more of a snatch grip to avoid shoulder fuckery. I tried that tonight and it worked like a treat, upright rows were good and my shoulders feel good
I switched to dumbbell upright rows maybe a decade ago when I used a straight bar and after the third rep my entire left arm went completely numb.
Two days ago I was doing hammer curls and I fof something that tweaked my left lateral bicep. If I externally rotate that arm it hurts like a motherfucker but otherwise seems to be fine.
I found out my gym has a neck extension which is cool. So I was doing neck extensions at the end of my workout which is serendipitous because on the up extension I looked straight across from me and saw a kid just absolutely toothpasted under the bench press bar.
Had to jump up and sprint across the gym to get the bar off him. Luckily I guess he was new and wasn't benching much more than maybe 105 pounds.
I found out my gym has a neck extension which is cool. So I was doing neck extensions at the end of my workout which is serendipitous because on the up extension I looked straight across from me and saw a kid just absolutely toothpasted under the bench press bar.
Had to jump up and sprint across the gym to get the bar off him. Luckily I guess he was new and wasn't benching much more than maybe 105 pounds.
Glad you had your wits about you. I used to be so scared of failing a bench rep and getting stuck like that before I learned to ask for a spot
League of Legends: Plutoniumwombat
Smite: Plutoniumwombat
I also never bench with collars on specifically because I am terrified of failing a rep. That way I can dump the plates if I need to. Better to make a racket than get bisected.
I also never bench with collars on specifically because I am terrified of failing a rep. That way I can dump the plates if I need to. Better to make a racket than get bisected.
Same. If I'm alone in the gym, and I almost always am, then it's no collars on the bench. Not that I have ever had to dump em, but just in case.
Cause holy shit these things are evil and I've always been humbled by them instantly. Doesn't even really matter if I'm doing them with dumbbells or body weight, I got about 8 to 10 in the tank for each leg before its like, goodnight time to die.
I have a love/hate relationship with them. But I find myself picking them for my hypertrophy blocks pretty often because they’re pretty damn good on the stimulus to fatigue ratio.
I take rests between legs to clear systemic fatigue, so that helps make them slightly less deathly. At least during them; I’m still complete jell-o afterwards.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I've never been light enough to do them but they look like they kick ass.
Cause holy shit these things are evil and I've always been humbled by them instantly. Doesn't even really matter if I'm doing them with dumbbells or body weight, I got about 8 to 10 in the tank for each leg before its like, goodnight time to die.
No, they're terrible. I've been able to get up to about 30 lb dumbbells but I've never been able to get over ten or so reps.
Do you use a straight or bent leg on your bench (or whatever your using to keep one leg up)?
Posts
I saw that, apparently a 50kg misload?!?!?
Should I start thinking about moving off LP when my gains start to stall or when recovery hits a wall? I feel like I’m nearing that spot with squats and deadlifts but my OHP and bench aren’t leaving me stiff/sore hardly at all. Is it normal to keep LP on some movements and change things around for movements you’re starting to peak at?
Smite: Plutoniumwombat
I think they misloaded Joey Coriacci’s third attempt, too. He posted a story the day of, but nothing since. Everyone else seemed to say it was a really well run meet.
In today’s life threatening mistakes, do not - I repeat, do not - exhale with the bar on your chest during a high volume set of two board presses. I’m pretty sure I stumbled into some kind of fetish territory doing so. Finishing that set torched me hard with three more after to get through.
Weights, that is.
My butt is laggin'. I got like, dino quads and hamstrings so my upper legs be thick as hell but my ass? My ass she is so frail and weak. I think some of that may also be a contributing factor to some of my lower back issues as well so there's a functional aspect to this, too.
I'm trying to focus on glutes too as I'm working on correcting my anterior pelvic tilt, which I have partly because it runs in the family and mostly because I spent a lot of time sitting down gaming.
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
Hahahaha NOPE. My ribcage said no sir, no you're not! I don't know what I did, but it feels like someone has a string connected to the inside of my ribcage on my right side and if I twist or lean it's like that sadistic bastard yanks on it like they're starting an outboard motor. I've woken myself up gasping in pain the past couple nights when I attempt to roll over in a way that those muscles disagree with. Looks like I'll be waiting till the 50lb bag shows up and using that for a while to build up to the 100lb.
Also, that Brian Alsruhe EDC program seems ridiculous when I look at his weight recommendations. Light = 25-50lbs less than bodyweight, Medium = ~bodyweight, Heavy = 25-50lb more than bodyweight. This is gonna be super humbling if I can't even deal with the 100lb sandbag yet.
It feels like where my vastus medialis ties in under the patella on the inside of the knee is getting a lot of strain and I can kinda counter this by really focusing on dropping down through the hips and forcing my knees out in a slightly wider angle to my feet but it takes a lot of concentration.
I spent almost a year doing low weights because of knee problems. Are you going past 90 degrees? I've seen lots of glorifying depth of the squat, but never from the medical or PT community (with significant weight). I'm pretty flexible and I could get low, but after some knee problems and talking to physical therapists, I do squats with a little stool behind me so that I only barely go past 90. I haven't had problems since, and was able to go back up to decent weights.
I actually don't know. When I fucked my back up I did squats off a box for a good year, year and a half and for some reason they felt really limiting to me. Like I wasn't getting maximal ROM so I dropped my weight back to like, warmup weights and have been slowly rebuilding from there.
That said, I've been getting this knee tightness at almost every portion of the movement if I'm not careful, not just in the hole. I need to find some good compression sleeves and see if that helps a touch.
Basically the message I'm getting from my body is that it no longer wants to lift weights. I've been dealing with a long simmering strain starting in my right trap, running down through my front delt and into the bicep that's been making things like incline benches and OHP feel kinda dangerous. I dunno, might be time to just start doing Jane Fonda stuff I guess.
Fingerboarding, Bench, OHP and weighted pullups
All of them felt like absolute death
I’m counting it. PR!
Now to survive five sets of backoffs. Survival instincts, don’t fail me now.
Due to a lack of plate variety in my apartment gym, I had to hop from 165 (two sets of six) all the way to 185. First time I tried it, I managed to get two reps out, and I thought, hey, not bad, this will gradually improve. But now, a full month later, I am NO CLOSER. In fact, today I had to bail on my second rep of my second set and shame-wriggle out of it.
I'm incensed and confused. How do you guys go about breaking plateaus like this? How do I tell if it's a mental thing?
I'm trying seated overhead press and weighted dips as one of my press days, since benching twice a week has been no bueno in the past, and two weeks in it's going ok. I hit a smooth set of six dips with an extra 30lbs today (dipping a total weight of ~245lbs) and that's better than I expected, I can work with that.
*Or whatever works for you to get what you're aiming for. I aim for 10 so I can drop down to 5 when I go up in weight. Then I start over.
Board pressing is really challenging my ability to keep a brace. Given how I conducted myself earlier in my life, I would’ve thought I would have been most accustomed to having weights pressing down on my abdomen, but I guess I never went this heavy.
…sorry… I’ll go back in my cage now.
Ultimately, I think it will lead to me holding a brace better during benching, but this is my first mesocycle trying it. Still getting used to it.
I don't see anything shameful about that, I follow plenty of lifters on social media because they're interesting characters and I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all (until they turn out to have shitty politics or be sex pests). I'll spoiler my own wee rant about powerlifting in case you don't care what I think, and I wouldn't blame you!
I’ll be lucky to get in 3 lifts per week over the next month. I’ll have to make do with 2 and finding a way to fit something in once or twice per week. Maybe time to take mobility serious? Lol jk
Daily upcoming schedule if anybody is curious:
4:00am - wake up, prep for day with water and coffee
4:45am - walk dog and take care of bathroom needs
5:15ish - fix breakfast, bathroom
6:00 - wake up baby, eats breakfast
6:45 - en route to daycare
7:10 - practice
8:15 school starts, practice rolls through athletics period
9:00-3:50 teach
4:00 go help after school with practice
4:30/4:45 go to HS and run wtrm 2x school week
5:30-6:00 home
6-7:30 spend as much time with baby as possible and do chores before she goes down. Walk dog if not too hot / throw ball in yard if it’s too hot to walk.
9-10pm bed unless it’s game night then it’s more like 11-12 after laundry and uploading film and getting home and eating something.
Fortunately we have some help with friends and family nearby that will let the dog out around midday so he’s not having to hold it from 7-5
It kinda is making me nervous pulling deadlifts today because I'm like "is my bicep about to snap?" I've had one too many of those muscle tear videos sneak up on me and now it is a fear I live with.
Two days ago I was doing hammer curls and I fof something that tweaked my left lateral bicep. If I externally rotate that arm it hurts like a motherfucker but otherwise seems to be fine.
Had to jump up and sprint across the gym to get the bar off him. Luckily I guess he was new and wasn't benching much more than maybe 105 pounds.
Glad you had your wits about you. I used to be so scared of failing a bench rep and getting stuck like that before I learned to ask for a spot
Smite: Plutoniumwombat
I'd like to push that over 160kgs by the end of the year, should be doable!
Same. If I'm alone in the gym, and I almost always am, then it's no collars on the bench. Not that I have ever had to dump em, but just in case.
Cause holy shit these things are evil and I've always been humbled by them instantly. Doesn't even really matter if I'm doing them with dumbbells or body weight, I got about 8 to 10 in the tank for each leg before its like, goodnight time to die.
I take rests between legs to clear systemic fatigue, so that helps make them slightly less deathly. At least during them; I’m still complete jell-o afterwards.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
No, they're terrible. I've been able to get up to about 30 lb dumbbells but I've never been able to get over ten or so reps.
Do you use a straight or bent leg on your bench (or whatever your using to keep one leg up)?